Shannon Column: The Bath County Hillbilly

As the Democrat’s gubernatorial primary was drawing to a close, the Washington Post surprised many political observers by endorsing the unpolished Creigh Deeds over happenin’ guy Terry McAuliffe
and liberal heart-throb Brian Moran.

But it soon became evident the Post had contracted a near-toxic case of buyer’s remorse after Deeds’ primary victory.

There was the slightly condescending tone when describing Deeds’ political background in rural Bath County. In fact the word rural appears so often in Post coverage of the Deeds’ campaign that I
assumed it was his nickname. And there are the references to Deeds’ “authentic” and “folksy” speaking style and his “stammering” tendencies, which is code for “this hayseed can’t get the marbles out of
his mouth.”

Now the eyes of the nation are focused on two governor’s contests in this off year, Virginia and New Jersey, and the Post is stuck accompanying this Bath County bumpkin to the ball, while the New York
newspapers get to squire around Jon Corzine — a Wall Street mover-and-shaker who knows about wine, rather than moonshine.

So if the king maker is uneasy, what are mere voters to think about voting for Deeds in November?

When the Post initially crowned Deeds I just assumed they picked the frontiersman because they wanted a candidate who may have actually been born in a log cabin. Creigh, with his quaint first name,
would add the common touch and help Dems fight the elitist label that damages the party outside Brie and Chablis precincts of Northern Virginia.

The Posties certainly had me sold on Creigh’s backwoods bona fides. Why when Deeds had his auto crash this summer, I just assumed it occurred when his coonskin cap got turned around and the tail
suddenly blocked his vision.

A closer look at Deeds and his campaign only proves the Post is being superficial and merely judging based on appearances and GPS coordinates. Any iconoclastic views diverging from national
Democrat orthodoxy that Deeds may have harbored while holed up in his mountain fastness, have been scrubbed off of him by his association with standard-issue beltway Democrats. He is just as
clueless regarding economics and market forces as any candidate. Deeds just does it in buckskin instead of Armani.

Creigh came to Prince William County in early September to tout his “small business plan” to a group of local capitalists. As he strolled along the streets of Occoquan he proclaimed, “The whole idea is
to create a culture of entrepreneurism. When you create a job you give a person an opportunity to feed their family for a week.”

That’s sharecropper or migrant-worker level employment, if you ask me, which may be in keeping with Democrat emphasis on encouraging the importation of illegal immigrants.

Most people’s career horizons extend beyond a week of beans & franks, but hey, I guess any attention to private sector job creation from a Democrat is a start. Maybe if he can attract some Obama
stimulus dollars, Deeds can guarantee two weeks of vittles.

Deeds also wants to help government continue to bulk up by offering a scholarship to cover half the cost of college tuition for students who do “public service” jobs in Virginia after graduation.

To illustrate how hard it is for college students, Deeds explained, “”When I left for college, I left home with four $20 bills that my mother gave me. Four $20 bills wouldn’t buy you a biology textbook today.”

Deeds never asks the obvious question regarding higher education, which is why do college costs continue to rise every year, far in excess of the rate of inflation?

It’s not like raw material costs are increasing at Virginia Tech. On the contrary, colleges and universities get to charge their raw materials as freshmen stream into the dorms each fall. It could be that
Democrats who insist on subsidizing loans for college costs help insulate college administrators from market forces and the consequences of their price gouging.

Instead, Deeds uses a lame reflection on his past that only serves to illustrate how little Democrats understand about money. I’m no economist, but I can tell Creigh that the $80 Ma Deeds gave him in
1976 is worth $224 in 2009 dollars due to inflation. Just a brief web search reveals that the most expensive biology textbook retails for $144. So not only can “Rural” Deeds afford his biology textbook, he
will have his original 80 bucks left over.

Which confirms Deeds is just as ignorant of the free market as Barney Frank and Henry Waxman.

So the Posties can relax. There is no danger reporter allergies will be aggravated by hay bales at the inaugural hoedown. Deeds has been tamed. Should he win, I’m certain he will even leave his flintlock
at home so as not to frighten the gun-shy from Alexandria.

Michael R. Shannon is owner of MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations, located in Woodbridge. He can be reached at Michael-Shannon@com cast.net.